Hello in a Goodbye
by c1araoswa1d
Summary: What does the Doctor forget? What does Clara remember? (Post Hell Bent)


He remembered the way she tucked her hair behind her ear just before she spoke sometimes – as though in those moments she wanted him to see the entirety of her face; the full depth of the emotions that accompanied the words she was going to say – and he remembered the way it always made his hearts each skip a beat as they understood her request without question. As they understood the magnitude of the realization every time: _does she even need to ask_?

He remembered the times she didn't feel the need to put that emphasis on her face for him to pay attention; when her laughter was light and her smile was easy and her eyes twinkled as they disappeared into slits in amusement. He would _always_ remember the ways she laughed – from the soft giggles building up to the bursts of notes from her spilling out like the chords of the most beautiful medley strumming against the grooves in his mind, being made into memories he could play back at will.

The Doctor sighed as he fell into the chair in his Tardis, holding his new Sonic lightly, wondering why Clara ever thought he needed to be told to look in her direction. Wondering why Clara ever thought he wouldn't. Except that moment had come. Hair tied back into a ponytail, flecks dropping over the back of her neck to conceal a tattoo that would forever be frozen in the zero hour of her death, she'd smiled for him so many times in the span of their conversation.

His retelling of their last adventure.

His last little white lies to complement her own.

 _Of course I remember you_ , he wanted to scream.

He remembered the way her dimple deepened in different ways when she'd been excited, or smug, or upset. The different ways her lips bent as the thoughts filled the mind behind those eyes. _Oh, did the Doctor remember her eyes_. He could get lost in those eyes for a millennia and still not understand their expanse and he closed his own to blink away tears knowing he never would.

He wanted to.

He wanted to stare into her eyes forever.

He remembered the way they looked; in that alleyway the first time he'd truly seen her. He remembered the curiosity at the sight of that snowman and the way he couldn't help but feel he was seeing that spark he thought he'd lost forever in his own sitting there in hers. He remembered the way they stared up at him in confusion when he'd shown up at her door, and the way they'd smiled when she flummoxed him, and the way they always hid a sadness at her losses. The way they defied those losses with a fire that refused to die.

He remembered the way they cried.

The way he could feel his chest implode every time they reddened and the way his body ached as every tear dropped because those eyes shouldn't have known that pain. Those eyes shouldn't have been able to share that pain with him. Those eyes, he thought to himself, deserved so much more than they'd seen and that was the only gift he could give her in their final moments.

A hello to a lifetime in a goodbye to theirs.

"Clara," he breathed, head leaning back to rest against the chair, plucking up the guitar that sat beside that old chair to lay in his lap, plucking at the strings knowingly to listen to the all too familiar song. He imagined it would be a theme in his head, even when his fingers were too numb to play, a set of notes that would constantly push him forward in his darkest moments or would recall a memory from time to time on a whim.

He could remember her and he allowed himself to for just a moment more because he remembered the shared dream and he remembered the words of Danny Pink's memory. He would allow himself a few moments in each day and he would grieve, but then he would move on because the heartbeat of the universe continued to pulse, even though he felt as though his might have stopped with hers. The Doctor smiled as he remembered her words in his mind and he nodded to himself.

He'd had to give her up for the universe, so he thought it only right she guide him in doing so.

The Doctor would get up off his arse and win.

* * *

She watched the buttons light up and then dim and light up again and she stared, refusing to let her eyes well up again at the thought of him – at the knowledge that he'd forgotten her – because she knew it was for his own good. It was for the good of them both; for the good of the universe. The knowledge that Me might be right, that they – _the Doctor and Clara Oswald_ – might be that unconquerable _Hybrid_ together, hung heavily on her stilled heart and for a moment she checked her pulse again. She imagined she'd do that often for a while.

Stubbornly hoping against hope.

Even though it might mean the end of the universe.

Clara tried to calm herself with the truth that there were still traces of her left – that her influence still hugged at his hearts and rattled his mind and he would go on into the universe being not a warrior or a man in mourning or a Time Lord in a rage... but instead, he would go on as the Doctor. _Her_ Doctor. She smiled as she tapped a pen to her notebook and didn't look up at the woman across from the console that watched her; the woman who understood what had happened just moments ago and had agreed to 101 places before Clara's inevitable death.

Repentance for her part in it.

"Keeping a diary?" Me questioned lightly, and Clara smiled at the curiosity in that voice. Billions of years of living and there would always be that nagging little voice in the back of that immortal's mind about _something_. It was the human spirit, Clara knew; and she knew a tiny bit of that would always be locked away in the Doctor's mind as well, put there by the company he kept from Earth – or maybe, _just a bit_ , by genetics, she smirked.

Pointing the pen, she admitted, "My own Confession Dial, in a sense; except _without_ the torturous trials."

Me's raised brow amused her, and she caught the wide eyes that stared down, trying in vain to read the words written neatly there. One day she'd see them, she knew; one day she'd let her. One day she'd ask her to deliver those words to the Doctor to go back and care for her wishes, and to let him know he'd made the right choices. Know they both had in the end.

At least she hoped.

"Are you alright?" Me asked lightly, and Clara watched her eyes dart towards the console doors, thinking of the man who'd been there, and Clara smirked at the monitor that sat just above the girl's head. "I watched," she admitted readily. "I was curious."

"Bet you were," Clara retorted, not answering the unanswerable question.

"Are you going to choose our first destination," Me stated before adding, "I am going to keep track," as she tapped lightly on her right temple with a smirk.

Nodding, Clara looked down at the notebook as she closed it and she took a long and unnecessary breath before pinching her lips and turning away. Eyes closing, she saw the Doctor's smile and she heard his voice retelling their tale and all of the things he couldn't remember. The most simple and Important words exchanged in the Cloisters – words she thought didn't need saying until she'd watched a raven swoop in to take her life – just before he'd asked, " _That said now, how do we get out of here, Clara Oswald_?"

"Does it bother you, that you're barely a memory to him now?" Me asked boldly.

Raising her head, Clara smiled. She was the encouragement to a young boy in a barn; the voice constantly telling him to never be alone, to use fear as a weapon, to always be brave. She was the flame that lit through his time stream to keep him alive and she was the calm in the moment that saved his home and she was the answer the granted him a new set of regenerations when all hope seemed lost... _Barely a memory_ , she thought to herself as she considered it, she'd _never_ be _just that_ to the Doctor.

Looking to Me, she offered a nod and explained confidently, "I'm no more _barely_ a memory than you are _just_ a girl. I am a song, and you are a warrior. And Me, _together_ we're going to seek out the furthest reaches of the universe and we're going to become stories, you and I."

"Legends, even," Me supplied.

Reaching for the lever before her, Clara gripped it and she thought of the Doctor. She hoped he would find someone and she hoped he would remember his words to her because she would never forget them for as long as she lived – and Clara hoped, looking to Me smiling at her from across the console, it would be a very long time – and she giggled loudly, throwing the lever that sent them twirling back into the vortex.

She would run and she would laugh until the very last moment.

And Clara would never touch a pear.


End file.
